Murderer's Maze
by ibuzoo
Summary: A new killer causes a worldwide media sensation by committing crimes so depraved, that they're creating a global panic. Only Special Agent and Consulter Hermione Granger can stop the killer—if she can solve his most complex and terrifying puzzle. Will she see through his game before her time runs out? Or will she lose herself in his maze of terror?
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

**Rating: **M

**Warnings/Tags: **Psychological anguish / Torture / Murder / Explicit Murder / Bestial ways to kill someone / Blood and Gore / Modern AU / Serial!killer AU /Psychopathology & Sociopathy

**Summary:** A new killer causes a worldwide media sensation by committing crimes so depraved, that they're creating a global panic. It appears that he chooses his victims random, but they're always accompanied by a riddle that leads to the next one. Only Special Agent and Consulter Hermione Granger can stop the killer—if she can solve his most complex and terrifying puzzle. Will she see through his game before her time runs out? Or will she lose herself in his maze of terror?

**A/N:** Hello Everyone! So, I finally had the guts to start a multi chaptered fic and today I proudly present the result of it. It's by far the darkest Tom I've ever written and **anyone with a sensitive spot or certain trigger points should stay away from this fic.** It contains a lot of blood and torments and explicit descriptions of Tom's tortures and murders, as well as some serious mindfucks.

I also tried another writing method with this one, it's a far more narrative way and not as cropped or lyrical as the one I'm using in One-Shots and drabbles. I hope people will still like it. I'd love to hear your opinions because I'll try to improve and writers can just progress if their readers tell them what they liked and what they could do better.

**Disclaimer: **This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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**ooo**

**There's a monster at the end of this story.**

**It's the blank page where the story ends and leaves you alone with yourself and your thoughts.**

**ooo**

_I'm not playing a major part in this story, not yet._

_At least not in the first chapter. _

_I'm mentioned briefly, although it's just a poor reflection of my true potential. _

_It's not until the third chapter that I'm truly making an appearance. _

_The Prologue however, belongs to me all alone._

**ooo**

Remus Lupin woke up, his daze gradually disappearing and he looked at his environment out of burning eyes. This was his home, his living room.

Infinite relief flooded trough his veins, like the injection of something pure and nice and for the flicker of a moment he was persuaded, that everything that happened before has been a mere nightmare.

He was wrong.

His eyes fell on the petite frame of his wife and his six year old son, both sitting on two dining chairs, back to back and their shock-dilated eyes looked at him with a mixture of panic and despair.

Both were pinioned, their mouths closed with adhesive tape, Tonks' hair sticking to her front and cheeks which were soaked from tears and sweat. Blood crusted on a wound adorning her forehead.

"Tonks!" Remus tried to crawl towards her, but he noticed his own hands were constrained behind his back. He tried to rear up but it was a lost case.

He raised his face once more to look at his wife, saw the way her light brown hair fell into her traits which were contorted, twisted from the terror written all over them. Her natural complexion was pallid and ashen and there was no trace left of the rosy skin that he loved so much. Little Edward looked much the same. His little body shook from the effort of screaming against the tape and it shattered Remus' heart in a million pieces, to see his family helpless and frightened. His whole body was trembling from blind rage but Tonks captured his attention and her eyes insinuated him to look rightwards.

Remus followed her glance.

There was another man in the room.

He was occupying the place in Remus' favorite armchair, an old memento that he had kept in the family for years. Long legs dressed in an inflated looking suit were crossed right before Remus' eyes. Italian leather graced his feet that looked as frightfully expensive as his perfect long fingers that were covered in an equal black leather, resting on the armrests of the settle. Surprisingly the face of the intruder wasn't covered or masked at all. It was beautiful for a man, even Remus couldn't deny that, with long eyelashes and a perfect haircut that made his hair look just the right amount messy to provide him with a certain kind of flair. His cheekbones were high and the facial features were overall young but masculine, with full lips gracing his mouth. The only thing that showed any indication of the monster living within his veins were piercing, icy eyes that held no trace of any emotion, as well as the cruel smile that curled around his lips.

The smile was plastered on the stranger's face, and he rose from the armchair and approached Remus in a light-footed manner. "I'm glad you decided to join the party, dear Remus," the man said**,** and his voice drawled like fluent honey around Remus**'** mind. He grabbed the rope that bounded Remus' wrists together and yanked him in a kneeling position. The man hunkered down beside him and bowed right to Remus' ear, one hand on the ropes, one on Remus' nape.

"Shall we start?"

The stranger gripped the tape on Remus' lips and a second later he yanked it violently off. The pain was searing and the skin around his mouth felt like raw meat, especially in the places where his moustache had been. He clenched his teeth and his muscles churned from wrath, but no sound escaped his lips. He didn't want to tempt the psychotic or firing up his pervert fantasies. Solely Tonks and Edward should survive, that's all he prayed for.

"What do you think about Death, Remus? Do you think our lives will repeat before our eyes when we die? That we'll witness our mundane existence once again? Do you believe the story with the light at the end of the tunnel? Do you think your family will go to heaven once I've killed them?"

The stranger's voice sounded light, nearly amused and it turned Remus' stomach inside out. He could taste bile on his tongue and with every breath his nasal wings bloated. He tried to wrench at the ropes on his wrists once more but failed, again.

Remus felt helpless. He couldn't find an exit path, no prospect of salvation. They lived near the forest, isolated from the next village and nobody would hear their screams. His last hope was that somebody would miss them. Sirius would look for him. If he didn't show up for work without a word, Sirius would appear sooner or later at their door and ask about his well-being. But how long would this take? How much time had already passed?

His eyes followed the man who stepped around the armchair and bowed down to yield a big garden tube affixed on an iron barrel. He took both in his hands and returned right beside Remus, setting the barrel aside.

Remus finally found the strength to ask, voice a mere whisper, "Why do you do this?"

The stranger narrowed his eyes to slits and snarls, his former amusement lost in the act

_"__Why_? The _Why_ doesn't matter!" His voice was pure venom and Remus felt the biting flavour of the man's acrimony in his throat.

"Do you know about the Ten-to-Ninety rule? It says that a live exists through ten percent of actions that happen to us, and ninety percent exist trough our reactions on it. That is the vital importance. The question why I'm doing this, is insignificant."

The voice was piercing and as disparate as no other sound Remus ever heard. It chilled him to the bones. Nothing mirrored in the lifeless grey eyes of the stranger, all Remus saw was a dead end, a hollow hole and it terrified him to death.

Remus was used to perversion and killers in general. You couldn't be an Mi6 associate in London without getting your hands deep down in the puddle of dirt and blood. But he never met a psychopath that could nearly compare to the ghastliness radiating from the man right before him.

A dangerous, maniac glint shimmered in the stranger's grey eyes, when he stepped beside Remus again and pressed his fingertips in the flesh of his cheeks right in the spot under his eye sockets. He started to press until water gathered in Remus' eyes.

"Everyone's always whining, but no one really knows the meaning of the word **_pain_**."

The pressure on Remus' cheek increased and the fingers started to push the flesh apart, tearing at it in the process.

"Stop your useless questions, Remus, because be aware, once I'm losing interest in this, I'll kill you all."

His voice was incisive at first, then calm, nearly loving. He slapped his cheeks once. Then finally, he released the face out of his adamant grasp.

Remus needed to blink several times until the blaze in his eyes vanished again. His sight was watered, blurred in the process and he needed a second until the stranger came into his view again, who dragged the armchair right before Remus body. The man sat down and took the garden tube in his hand again, using it as a pointer to emphasize the words that drawled out of his fine lips.

"I want to let you in on a little secret Remus, just between you and me."

There was a pause in which the stranger clacked his tongue against his palate, a sound that echoed frothy in the tensed air.

"You're part of a game. A **_riddle_** you could say."

The man grinned as if he said something terribly amusing, like a pun Remus didn't catch.

"Let me explain the rules for you. As you may have noticed by now, you're the only one without a tape on your mouth. The reason for this is simple. I'll ask you a single question, namely who will die tonight. Two of you will die, I don't care who. Now, there are certain possibilities how this can end, so lets think about it.""

The hole of the garden hose pointed right at Remus' face before the man spoke again.

"Possibility one. You decide to die first. Now if you think I'd have the generosity to let your son live while I'd kill your wife, let me tell you that nobleness was never a virtue for me. I'll kill you first and your son dies next."

There was a certain frost biting at his words and Remus didn't doubt his words for one second. He swallowed hard. The stranger seemed to find his silent fear as a sign of comprehension, because he continued in the same voice.

"Possibility two. I'll kill your wife and your son. I'll cut the rope and you'll be free to go. I think your freedom would leave a bitter taste in your mouth, but I wouldn't judge you if that'd be your decision."

There was another pause, as if the man would wait for the impact that his words had on Remus. Once more he proceeded.

"Possibility three. I'll kill your wife, after I kill you but your son will stay alive. I'll call the police and they can pick him up right here. He may have some emotional and psychological problems, but he's free to live his pathetic unimportant life as long as God grants him."

The man made a dismissive gesture with the tube, but Remus saw the glint of something perfidious in his eyes.

"Now that's the fun part. You see Remus, this would be the ideal outgoing for both of us. I need you to do something for me. I'd kill your wife, but I'd let you live just a tad longer. Because I need you to deliver a, hm…let's call it _gift_."

His hand grabbed beside the other side of the armchair which was hidden from Remus' sight and revealed a box. It was not bigger than a paperback but carefully wrapped in brown paper. The stranger set the box back aside the armchair dedicated his full attention back to Remus once again.

"Now that you know the rules and possibilities, I want to make it absolutely clear, that under no circumstances two members of your family will get out alive of this. If you trespass against my rules or if you refuse to play, I'll make you watch how I'll skin both of your beloved ones - first your wife and then your son. I'll take my time. They'll beg me to kill them. They'll beg you to kill them and you'll wish you'd have done it yourself to spare them the agony I'll let them feel. Did you understand?"

Remus cringed under the ferocious hiss, but nodded nevertheless. The stranger leaned back into the comfy embrace of the luxurious armchair, mimicking his earlier appearance as he swung his leg right over his knee.

"Marvelous. Shall we begin then?"

Remus lifted his gaze from the stranger back to his wife and he knew, that they both followed the same train of thoughts. If just one of them could survive, it had to be Teddy. Tonks eyes spoke books and whole prayers and Remus understood.

_I love you. I do understand. It's okay. _

The love of his live closed her eyes and lowered her head.

Remus opened his mouth but no sound was made. He couldn't vanquish himself to speak the words, the name and he racked his brain, tried to find a solution so all of them could live.

But there was none.

"I remember, hazily, I already told you, that my patience wears thin," urged the stranger and his usual gorgeous face dropped in a grotesque mask, like some animal waiting to snatch its prey.

Remus didn't have a choice.

He opened his mouth again and spoke hesitantly with a broken voice, merely above a whisper: "Tonks will die first. And afterwards- afterwards I'll do whatever you want me to do."

At first, the stranger remained silent and the clock ticked louder and louder with every second passing, but then he started to laugh, vacant and blaring, a noise that shuddered Remus' bones right to the core. The man raised from the chair in a single elegant move and took the iron barrel in one hand, placing it carefully right before Tonks feet which were tied to both sides of the chair. The barrel was small but contained at least 5 or 6 liter. _'Of what?',_ was the obvious question and Remus could feel the upcoming terror in his guts, the way his entrails turned once over.

The stranger took the tube in one hand and picked a knife out of his pocket. He pushed it gently against Tonks' cheek and for a horrid second Remus thought he'd skin her face.

What followed was even worse.

The knife cut the tape on Tonks' mouth with a surgical precision right between the space where her lips met, leaving a small hole behind just wide enough so he could fit the tube in. The man pushed the tube trough the hole and down until Tonks started to gag, then he pulled it back some millimeters and took the tape-roll from the nearby table to fixate his construction firm and solid, so that the tube wouldn't slip free.

"Say goodbye to your darling wife, Remus. It'll be the last time, that you'll see her beautiful face for a while."

Panic was written all over Tonks' face and mirrored in Remus' as well. Edward was tearing at his shackles, eyes blown wide and Remus urged him to close his eyes. The stranger bowed down and loosened the valve on the barrel. The tube started to fill with something because Remus could see how it swelled lightly under the liquid that meandered trough its canal. By the time the liquid reached Tonks' mouth and throat Remus knew, that this would end in a bestiality he never witnessed before.

Inside, Tonks filled with torrid flames and she buckled desperately, her eyes a plead. She screamed against tape and tube, choked on spit and everything that gathered in her lungs and her nose moved rapidly. Tonks' eyes gushed out, red-swollen and they were rolling uncontrollably until the iris stuck out. The skin on her gorge and neckline was protuberant, melted like wax under her mute shrieking and Remus saw how her fingernails scratched the wooden chair until blood burst out of her tips. Her face inflated violet and veiny and the man laughed right beside Remus' ear, gibing, lunatic.

He pulled the plug on the barrel and Remus started to scream, tried to stem against the rope on his wrists to reach Tonks but everything seemed completely in vain. His voice failed after his gullet and throat felt raw. Despair filled his bones and he couldn't look longer at Tonks, so he pinched his eyes shut to spill his tears.

However the stranger didn't grant him the rest. Footsteps on the floor and then slender fingers dug into the flesh of his cheeks and eyelids, ripping them painfully apart so his eyes were at the mercy of the savagery right before him. He tried to press them shut again but the grasp of the man was relentless.

Tonks body flapped and collapsed in the chair. The skin bulged on her stomach, until it became fat and pink like a sausage. It got crannies and the flesh clung in raw shreds from her organs, spilling oil, blood and scorched entrails on the wood.

"Look at it Remus," the man breathed against his hair and his expensive aftershave was a biting contrast to the outrageous smell of burned flesh and hot oil. "Look at the pile of molten meat. Perhaps she's still living. Do you think she's dreaming of heaven right now?"

Remus tasted vomit on his mouth and the man released him a second later so he could throw up right before his knees. He was still coughing when the stranger took his place on the armchair again, completely ignorant of the barbarous cruelty to his right. In fact he looked kinda smug. Remus threw up once more.

The nerves of Tonks corpse still let the remains of her dead body tremble and Remus prayed to God that she was dead the minute the oil hit her stomach. Tears shook Remus and he sobbed Tonks name until the sound died and his lips shaped desperately the syllables over and over again. But no tone escaped now.

"Let's move on to the second part of our little game."

Annoyance swung in his voice as the stranger took the packet back into his hands and started to tap his fingers in a melodic rhythm on the cover.

"Like I told you before, I need you to deliver this little package. It's just a trifle, nothing material."

He made a derogatory hand gesture and continued, completely unaware of Remus' distress and loss.

"It's a bomb my dear Remus, and I want you to take it to the MI6 headquarter. You see, there are a lot of people I owe something and wouldn't it be great to pay back my debts all at once?"

The man smirked and tilted his head slightly to ask him."Will you do this for me?"

Remus' body repulsed in uncontrollable propulsions but his sobs had already died on his lips. His eyes darted to Teddy, but the boy was unconscious on the chair. The terror and the brutish stench had pushed him over his limits.

"Do I have to remind you," the stranger started again but the former tranquillity vanished with the first syllable. His tone was piercing, the face cruelly distorted while he spat at Remus, nearly a hiss that reminded him of snakes, "that if you're not following my orders**,** you're son will die next? There's enough hot oil left in this barrel to melt him down to a puddle of his own excrements. And I'll make you watch. And after, I'll take the knife and kill you. Your death will neither be fast, nor easy, but as painful, that you can't imagine it in the slightest. You'll beg for my mercy and that's when I'll force feed you with the meat of your family."

The grey in the stranger's eyes was replaced by a dangerous shimmer and each word echoed trough Remus' hollow body. A hand yanked brutally at his hair and he couldn't prevent the reflex squeal leaving his lips.

"I'll ask you one last time, Remus, will you do this for me?!"

Remus tried to throw the words around in his mouth, but nothing escaped. So he nodded to give his acquiescence. The man's nostrils bloated from the deep breath he took, then he dropped Remus' face once more and stepped over to Edward. Gently his fingers ran trough the child's brown hair that reminded Remus so much of his mother's. The eyes of the man remained vitreous, without any emotion when he spoke to Remus again.

"Be assured that it'd break my heart to hurt little Edward here. Don't get me wrong, I love children, I really do. Preferably when they're screaming in agony. But I'll spare him, like I promised. All you have to do is to deliver the package."

"A-anything," Remus finally stammered between sobs and blind panic. He added desperately, as if the words would give him strength when spoken out loud, "I'll do anything, b-but please spare him, please."

The leather-coated fingers froze in their movement. The man looked up, clearly self-satisfied. He gave Remus an approving nod, and his voice was a sneer when he said, "Good."

A second later the man was at Remus' side, hoisting him up to his feet, steadying him with one hand on the shoulder, the other severe on the rope and his shackled hands. He could feel the cold metal of a blade between his fingers, a ripping cut and then his hands fell slack to his sides. Marks of the rope were still burned in his flesh but he couldn't rub at them to disperse the numbness spreading in his wrists and fingers. A shove in his back made him stumble over his own feet but he found enough balance to resist the urge to fall down. The packet was pushed in his hands and Remus took it without hesitation, clutching his fingers around it as if it could break.

Another shove brought him close to the door but Remus risked a last glance at his son, who still sat unconscious on the chair. His voice broke again and he had to repeat the words two more times until they were finally audible enough in the sticky room.

"You promise that he'll survive when I do this?"

The man bared his teeth, chuckled as if it was the most amusing thing Remus could have said in such a situation, and for a moment Remus noticed how young his face was, no more than thirty he'd guess. Almost friendly the stranger tapped his hand on Remus' shoulder and pushed him to the door. He said, "My dear Remus, do I look like someone who doesn't keep his promises?"

Tears gathered in Remus eyes once more but he blinked them away, nodded.

"I'll deliver your packet."

Remus turned, and stumbled out of the house without another look back.

The stranger remained in the empty entrance for another minute. His ears were pursed to wait for the distant engine of Remus Lupin's car that drove away. There's no need to follow Lupin, he knew exactly what was going to happen at the MI6 headquarters once he'd arrive. The sensors he applied on the outdoor walls some hours ago would set the alarm on the bomb via satellite. Two minutes later it would blow the whole headquarters, leaving nothing behind besides ashes and dust.

An important note, carefully packed into a fireproof bag, would also be found, though not until the forensics crawled out of their caves to investigate the crime scene.

The stranger turned around, his footsteps resonated on the wooden floor as he approached little Edward again. His leather-covered fingers ran once more trough the boy's brown hair, the other hand curled around the childish chin and cheeks.

Edwards eyelids fluttered and a moment later the boy opened his eyes. He blinked, disorientated but when he caught sight of the stranger, the horror returned to the boys' eyes.

Remus Lupin wouldn't say a word. He wouldn't respond to direct questioning. He'd be semi-coherent, at best. He wouldn't dare to betray him. No one ever did.

For a second a cruel smile ghosted at the stranger's lips. Then he twisted his hands to opposing sides, snapping the boy's neck in a fluent motion. He felt the split of the boy's neck bones right trough his leather gloves, as well as the ripping of the still soft, infantile muscles. The blood-curdling cracks of the boy's breaking spine didn't bother the man at all.

Neither did the lacerated eyes of the boy which held no life anymore.

**ooo**

_Perhaps you read this brief introduction and think you already know me._

_I can assure you, you don't._

_I'm a shadow behind closed doors, the grim reaper your parents warned you of._

_I can do things you couldn't even begin to imagine. _

_I possess powers, skills and abilities beyond the human ken. _

_You'll coil in my witness, oppose the agony and anguish _I_'m sending upon you. _

_You'll be challenged and you can see it as a game or a never_-_ending struggle._

_Soon enough you'll ask yourself: What's the point of this?_

_What's the point of a game with so much violence, so much bloodshed and cruelty?_

_I can't explain my motives, not immediately form the start. _

_Not even the main characters know that they've entered my maze of terror. _

_But they'll learn._

_Pain and agony will lead them on their path trough my endless aisles._

_And _I_'ll lead you trough the same. _

_'Will it be worth it?' some may ask._

_'Not for everyone' _I_'ll answer. _

**ooo**

**_Will you step inside my labyrinth?_**


	2. One

**A/N:** _Doing researches for this chapter was hell and I wasted hours and hours on details that needs to be included for future chapters. I think I should include some explanations for shortcuts which are used and will be used more often now:_

_SIS - Secret Intelligence Service, also called the MI6_

_TOAS - Technical Operations, Analysis and Surveillance, a branch in the MI5_

_SIL - Safety Integrity Level, you need a certain level to have access on some areas or reports_

_SID - Scientific Investigation Service, short: Forensics_

_Be aware that Hermione's speculations in this chapter are just that - speculations. Not anything fits Tom of course._

_Also, I want to thank every reviewer, story favorite or story follower for supporting Murderer's Maze, i really appreciate it! Also a big thanks to Alice who needs to keep up with my mistakes and flat dialogues until they're good enough to include them. _

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**ooo**

**_Who in his mind has not probe the dark water? _**

**_John Steinbeck, East from Eden_**

**ooo**

* * *

_The world death rate totals approximately 500.000 per day and no one can say exactly how many people die out of criminal acts. This makes 348 deaths a minute, 5.7 deaths a second. According to recent studies at least every tenth dies at the hands of a murderer. Half of these killings consist of single naive opportunists, mostly out of trivial motives and feelings like revenge, passion, religion or hate. The other half contains organized, premeditated serial killers. If we adapt that theory to our previous results we realize that 17.4 people die each minute trough the hands of a serial killer, 25.000 deaths each day._

_9 out of ten serial killers pursue some ulterior motive to satisfy their own schismatical needs. _

_The last one though, is a special kind of creature._

**ooo**

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**Lupin House **

**48 Telegraph Track, Carshalton, Greater London**

**Thursday, 14. August, 7:32 a.m**

Lee Jordan's voice sounded strangely distorted over the muffled cracking on Hermione's old radio in her secondhand Volkswagen Rabbit. Usually there were no problems to receive BBC London 94.9, but the closer she got to the Lupin house, so much the worse the radio reception became.

_"__-… attacks hit the MI6 building as the morning rush hour drew to a close. A bomb went off around 9 a.m on the MI6 headquarter. 23 people have been killed, more than a hundred more are injured. Let's have a listen at the recording of yesterday's press conference from Secret Intelligence Service Chief, Albus Dumbledore."_

The crackling aggravated as Hermione took the next turn to the right, following the bucolic path deeper in the woods. Enormous trees were shielding any sunlight which tried to break trough. Lights were dancing on the thicket of colorful foliage, illuminating the path sparsely. The Volkswagen rattled over the stony path and Hermione opened her window to a gap, inhaling the fresh smell of firs and morning dew.

_"__Yesterday was a crude blowback that confronted us with audacity and brutality some men reveal to damage our beloved city and country. Today, we recognise the incredible courage and leadership of so many Londoner in the wake of a terror attack at the heart of our city. We offer our deepest gratitude to the courageous firefighters, police officers, medical professionals and spectators who, in an instant, displayed the spirit London was built on and helped the injured to leave the crime scene. Be assured that we will not stop until we find the culprit and take him off the streets. London's streets will-…"_

Static was all that followed.

Hermione turned off the radio because she knew the speech already. Shesaw and heard it yesterday afternoon on a little television in the corner of the E.R while she was waiting for her medical examination. After the building had been cleared, all of them had been transported to the closest hospital, St. Thomas on the Westminster Bridge. Fortunately, she didn't had any major injuries, just scratches and a bit of smoke in her lungs from running around and trying to help wounded colleagues in the heart of the mess. When crisis comes (and it always comes), it was often solved the way they were solving it now: doing their best with what they had.

She remembered the deafening sound of broken glass and a clamorous bang that shook the whole building and her body alike. The ground was quaking for seconds and for the split of a moment she thought the ceiling would fall down and crash them all. Then, she started running. She was still new at the SIS even though she worked as a profiler for three months now, but their department had been at the other side of the building, far enough for them to escape without further incidents.

With 28 years and a newbie at field work, the first months of her professional life had been entirely spent behind desks and archive records, below a superior who never took her brightness for more than a coincidence. She was all the more surprised when James Potter called her an hour ago and asked for her in person for this special case revolving around one of the man's best friends. She didn't want to disappoint him.

Hermione shook the memories off and followed the path in silence until she reached the house on the far end.

The Lupin house laid secluded from other neighbours, between giant firs and birches that provided shade during high summer, as well as warmth during long winters. It wasn't a mansion, but big enough for a little family and during autumn**,** it offered a paradisal view on phantom lights reflecting on green and brownish colours. Now, barricades had been erected in front of the home, starting at the street.

Hermione counted five cars altogether. Two patrol cars from the MI6 branch, two from the forensics and an older Peugeot 406 Break which belonged to James Potter, as she knew out of experience. She used to be really close to Harry, James' son, and she remembered this car being part of the family for ages. College years made them grow apart but they still held contact trough e-mails and phone calls, and she secretly hoped this would change for the better again. Last thing she heard, he became engaged to Ginny, and she was happy because the girl brought the best out of him.

She turned off the lights, grabbed her bag from the passenger seat and got out of the car, closing it in the process. She took her MI6 badge out and showed it to the guards which were standing at the barricades, already waiting with a smug expression to send her back again. One of the officers skimmed the ID with narrow eyes and let her pass a second later. Two more officers were waiting inside the perimeter right before the house, scanning the area with two forensics on their side. They were searching for any indications on the murderer, and counting the evidence-numbers which were spread across the yard, they hadn't been really successful yet.

Forensics was a dirty job. It was all about body fluids, decay, blood and people at their worst. Sometimes, it was about giving a report with too little information and even the most trained crime scene tech was still never trained enough to deal with everything at once.

She shut it all out and entered trough the unhinged front door.

A stench, as despicable that tears gathered in her eyes pierced the room. Bile rose in her throat when the staggering reek reached her nose in hot humid waves until she felt, as if she was drowning in a sea of scats. Hermione wrinkled up her nose and squinted her eyes in the process.

She kept walking.

The entryway floor was bright hardwood over concrete, quiet, polished, squeak-free. Three men, clothed in white plastic overalls and latex gloves, rushed past Hermione to leave the house. The only one staying behind was currently talking with James.

James was already waiting for her, sleeves rolled up and tie loose. The man was in his late forties, his hair was uncharacteristically messy, much like Harry's and it looked as if someone had run his hands trough it several times. Wrinkles graced the red skin around his hazel eyes, reflecting grief and shed tears, and she could see the tension on the corners of his mouth, the way his shoulders were slightly lifted and his slender body stood stoic.

There was another man right beside him, even taller and lanky, clothed in the forensic overall with fingers covered in blue clinical latex gloves. The hood of the overall was down and shoulder-length black hair hang feckless and slack on both sides, a hooked nose disrupting an aged face. The man had black eyes which held a lot more wisdom than Hermione would credit him and the moment she stepped closer, the said stopped speaking and looked her once over, clearly judging.

Well, what a start.

James followed the man's glance and upon seeing Hermione, he managed to shape his mouth in something almost resembling a smile.

"Hermione, good to see you. I'm glad you made it." His tone was hopeful, almost desperate, and it put something heavy on her shoulders.

"The traffic was disastrous, but I managed to find my way." She gave a little smile herself and cleared her throat once more, the pain reflecting on her own features this time."My sincerest condolences for your loss, James."

Hermione met Remus and his family just twice. Once on Harry's birthday party some years ago and then again last year at a summer barbecue at the Potter's. She remembered them as kind and loving people, the ones you would call to ask for help when facing a forlorn situation. She knew James had been close to them, as well as Sirius, Harry's godfather. It must be hard to lose a friend when the bond was as close as brothers. She couldn't imagine losing Harry, nor Ron, even though there was some distance between them nowadays.

James took a deep breath and swallowed hard, clearly still shaken from the circumstances. But he was brave, nodded and thanked Hermione for her understanding.

They stood in an awkward silence for some seconds before the man at James side hawked vigorous, pointing at the file in James' hand with a single crooked finger. It stirred something in James, because he took the file up once more and finally introduced them to each other: "Right. Hermione, this is Chief Crime Scene Analyst, Professor Severus Snape. He's our counterpart in the Forensic Science Service for the _Voldemort_ cases. Snape, this is Hermione Granger, she's-"

"I know who she is," Snape interrupted harshly and continued blatantly, "Let's hope Miss Granger's work is at least half as promising as her reputations says." Snape said monotonously, almost like a tape that you repeated too often and adjusted its equalization in the process.

Hermione felt her cheeks redden in the insinuation, but it challenged her inner intellect to prove herself just more. His words left a bitter taste on her tongue and she couldn't hide her own reluctance against him.

"I will try to do my best, Professor." She forced a smile but even in her own ears her voice sounded pressed, offended, like it always did when someone tried to question her professionalism - let alone her brain.

Snape furrowed his eyebrows, but it could be her imagination. The man owned a strangely stoical face, which made it difficult for Hermione to read him. But reading him was not her job. Not today at least.

The bestial stench still clung in her nose when James stepped forward and lead her to the adjacent living room. The room was spacious with a darker wooden floor and a vaulted ceiling. A matching dark couch was facing the entrance door and an odd-looking armchair was neatly placed besides the couch, but its cushion pattern didn't really fit to the other furnitures. Large double-paned windows looked out onto the lawn and spent bright daylight to the otherwise gloomy room.

It was obvious that the Lupin's were trying to impress by blending in, not by standing out.

Two chairs were set back to back in the middle of the room, covered with white dust sheets, a deep crimson-brownish stain on the wood under them, like a dried puddle of blood, dark, thick and congealing.

James stopped awkwardly in the middle of the room and handed the file to Hermione, his eyes trying to avoid any contact with something that could stir some memories. Hermione took the file cautiously and flipped it open. Her eyes skimmed the text in a matter of seconds and she switched into her professional mood with ease. She took a notebook and a pen out of her bag and started to ask her questions.

"The corpses were identified as 37 year old Mrs. Lupin and her 6 year old son. Both were found yesterday night at 10:37 p.m from Special Agent Black - did he already make a testimony about it?"

Hermione looked up, but James stayed silent, the words obviously mute on his lips. She waited and granted him a moment.

"Sirius found them. After the Service found out that Remus' was the bomber, Sirius insisted on bringing the message to Tonks himself. I wanted to accompany him, but the mess in the headquarter just left enough room for one of us to go. When he arrived he found-… We didn't think that-…" His voice broke again and it took a lot of effort before he proceeded, shakily. Grief resonated with every word that left his lips. "Albus sent him to the medical department to undergo a psychological test before he's open to the field again."

"I'm sorry James…" She placed a delicate hand on James' upper arm and pressed her lips into a thin line. It was a small gesture of solace but he seemed to value the support.

He gave her a small smile and nodded his head in acceptance. His eyes were locked with hers and even if his voice was grateful she saw that his mind was miles away. "Thank you."

"Which Department did Remus work at?" she asked quickly and bit down on her lip a second later, as if to punish herself for her intrusive manner.

"TOAS."

Hermione raised her eyebrows at that, clearly surprised, as was her voice that mirrored the same stun. "He bombed the Technical Operations, Analysis and Surveillance Department?"

James nodded and grimaced, clearly uncomfortable with the topic.

"For the world, it will look like Remus really did it. The news already leaked, his name was on the online site of The Times this morning."

Hermione could read the denial and wrath out of his posture and she gave him space to breath and relax again. But he didn't. Instead, his words goaded on his heated temperament and he talked himself into rage.

James voice was pure venom and he spat the words in frustration while his hands were clenched to fists. His body was tensed to the point that the vein on his neck was pulsating in a throbbing rhythm and Hermione took a step back, watched the outburst from a safe distance. "It won't be long until the media will twist his name and actions until nothing remains than blatant lies. They're defiling his reputation and even if we can link this slaughter back to _Voldemort_, we have nothing to link him to the bombing. It's utterly frustrating!"

The fire died as fast as it rose and the man looked suddenly older, exhausted, the wrinkles on his face increasing, his eyes a desperate plea. Fatigue reflected on his features. It pained Hermione to look at him and see his pride stricken, broken.

Her voice was calm when she asked once more, confusion resonating in her tone. _"Voldemort_?"

"What?" James snapped out of his chasing thoughts and her question caught him off-guard completely.

"This is the second time you're mentioning it. _Voldemort_."

James clenched his fingers to a fist and pressed his lips into a thin line. "We have reasons to believe that this was the next homicide of a serial killer calling himself _Voldemort_."

"There was already one?" she scrutinized, her interest clearly aroused.

"More like five."

The pen stopped sharp on the blanched paper of her notebook, and she glanced up, eyes blown wide. "Five?" Her tone was a whole pitch higher and she bit down on her lip once more to cover up her obvious astonishment. Her eyes were searching for James' but he avoided it vehemently.

"Yes. This…barbarous cruelty bears his hallmarks. The murders are depraved, disgusted and usually we find a riddle attached to the victims, signed with an alias. _Lord Voldemort_. But this time we didn't find a riddle yet."

"A riddle? About what?" The question shot right back and she couldn't hide the excitement anymore. Some people would find these news macabre, albeit. For her, they felt overwhelming. _Finally a chance to prove myself. _

Hermione's interest was awaken, but James looked shamefaced, angry once more and he snarled trough the room, his voice a strange mixture between furious and aghast. "Different kind of things, sometimes he cites a fairytale, sometimes another book. Once he even sent three full pages of a bloody book and we needed two weeks to find out which one it was. Even Albus didn't know it."

"So we still don't know what the riddles want to tell us?"

"Albus has a suspicion," James continued and faced Hermione for the first time since they entered the room. His jaw worked some times before he settled on the words, as if he was not sure about them. "He thinks the riddles lead to the next victims."

Hermione nodded and scribbled some details on her notebook like _high intellect, arrogance, haughtiness _and_ pride._

"Are there any other patterns he follows?" '_Or she,'_ Hermione added in her thoughts.

"He murders in a rhythm of 41 days."

"Why 41?" _Odd number, prime number, n__2__ + n + 41, Leonard Euler?_ Her brain was working at highspeed and she felt the tingle of anticipation shooting trough her spine.

James gave a dry laugh, frustrated. "We don't know."

Circling the number on her pad three times, she made a mental note to take another look at it once she had all the information about the other homicides.

"Is there another relation between the murders? Between the victims perhaps?"

James shook his head in defeat and Hermione sighed, her own frustration growing. Pinning her pen to the notebook, she fixated a determined gaze on James.

"I need to have a look at all the files, the older ones too."

"Of course. Once the mess in the headquarter is cleared, your SIL will get raised for the archive-"

A sudden ringing interrupted James speech and he took the phone out of his pocket, reading the caller ID. He stretched his index out to give her a sign that he needed to take that call, and left the room once he accepted it.

Snape emerges from the shadows of the wall and rests besides the covered chairs. "I think we should start with the Crime Scene Investigation. Are you ready Miss Granger?" The man's voice was as indifferent as his mien, his former rudeness hidden.

„Yes." The agitation was clearly written in her eyes and it emphasized the pride which swayed in her voice. She was ready for this.

Her first real case.

Snape looked her once over, but there was no trace of pretension in his dark eyes anymore. It was a mixture out of curiosity and pity. A second later, he grabbed the blanket and pulled it back to reveal the chairs.

She waited a moment until Snape removed the dust sheet completely and packed it away, neatly folded. He retracted to the shadows once more and Hermione cut out everything else, concentrating on her job.

Her pen flew over her notebook to take her notes while her eyes scanned the room. Everything beside the chairs and the carpet was clean and nice, but unimaginative.

She smelled blood, rotten flesh, and the heavy stench of molten skin. It left a burning tingle in her nostrils, a slightly painful experience that watered her eyes and she needed to blink several times until her view cleared again. A cloying copper tang rested on her tongue, like a mouthful of pennies that she couldn't get rid of, no matter how much she tried to.

Even with every light in the house blazing, the atmosphere was jagged. Something cruel had happened here. Terror had filled the air, people died brutally, and the feel of it all was stifling.

The fear was still palpable, sharp and strong. The bestiality too.

There were no indications of a fight, even the smallest details were still perfect as the framed photographs on the wall or the vases with orchids and lilies on the sideboard. Hermione saw a man and a woman in the photographs, together, smiling and getting a bit older with each photograph that followed, until they were holding a baby, that grew to a young boy. The last picture seemed to be the most recent.

The living room continued on the right towards the back of the house, meeting the dining room seamlessly in the same dark wood. A mahogany dining table sat under a light hanging from a long black chain attached to the high ceiling. A single white French door beyond the table led into the kitchen.

Again, all very unsurprising. Pleasing, but not passionate.

Ahead of her was a stairway, zigging right to a landing, then zagging left to take you to its destination - the second floor. A door besides the big windows on the far east of the living room was leading to the backyard. _How did he enter?_

"Did you find any indications of a forced entry?" She asked casually and stepped closer to the chairs, crouching down to have a better look at the dried stains.

"Besides the unhinged front door that Special Agent Black kicked it in yesterday night? No." Snape's voice was dripping from sarcasm and Hermione rolled mentally her eyes, ignored the allusion.

"What about the backdoor?"

"Unscathed and interlocked."

"Windows?"

"The same."

She nodded machinable and her eyes landed on the blood trails again which were pooled and self-contained and looked as if the person sitting on one of the chairs bled to death. There were burnt in traces on the wood in an oddly brown-reddish colour, probably from molten flesh and muscles of a body. Or at least what remained of it.

Hermione flipped through the file once more and looked at the pictures. Her stomach turned over and she could taste the biting flavour of vomit on her tongue again. The boy's body looked intact with bruises in shape of cords around his ankles and wrists which protruded abstractly against his skin. His head however was twisted in a terrible angle, nearly 180° so much that his occiput laid on his shoulder. His eyes were wide and brown, a terrible look of horror reflecting in them.

The other crime scene photos were even worse. Tonks torso was nearly completely corroded, her body slumped on the chair, face distorted in an ugly mug. The skin hung loose in shreds starting from her cheeks down to her abdomen, where the rest of her innards were gathered in a puddle of flesh, purulence and a thicker fluid. Her wrists and ankles did also show traces of ropes.

Both had been pinioned. _What about Remus?_

"How many ropes did you f**i**nd?" She turned her head over her shoulder to look at Snape, who raised his eyebrows up, surprised.

"Six."

She nodded and addressed herself back to the chairs and the stains. It looked like some evil creature had used Tonks flesh as an abiotic puppet in a sick game. He had controlled and manipulated the body in such a ruthless abandon, that Hermione hoped the poor woman had been dead from early on.

Months of being a profiler (and even before when she was still studying) taught her to keep a pair of fresh gloves in her bag, which she took out to slip them over her slender fingers, until they were covered like a second skin. With her index she scrubbed over the crusted spot, tested the condition of the material. It was still moist, nearly creamy with claggy crumbs in it. _Coagulated Blood and…oil?_

"How long will it take until the laboratory sends the results of the DNA tests?" Her voice was pressed and professional while she raised up, flipped back to the main rapport and read over the neat handwriting to gather important informations like time, clothes, found evidences…

Snape grimaced. "At least three days, perhaps four. The mess from the headquarter will throw us back some days."

Hermione creased her face for the split of a second, annoyance clearly visible. She sighed deeply. "Alright. Did you find any evidence of the killer?"

"No personal traces." Snape stopped and both turned their heads when James reentered the room again, squirrelling his mobile away. Hermione continued her consultation undisturbed, focussed.

"But?"

"We found a five litre can right beside the chairs. It was still half filled."

_With oil,_ she added in her thoughts and jotted it down on the notebook too.

"No fingerprints I guess?" Her tone was half jokingly, half serious but Snape just raised an eyebrow and that was really an answer in itself. James chipped in their conversation, moving closer to both of them. "We never find any traces or evidence leading back to him. Everything's always clean."

_Too clean, almost clinical._

"What about outsides? Tire tracks? Footprints?"

"Nothing." Snape shook his head, his hair a flat swab which glued to both of his sides and for the split of a second Hermione asked herself if he simply didn't bother to wash it, or if he just didn't care.

James waited for her to speak again, but she didn't have anything else to ask at the moment, so he cut right in. "The SID called me, they found a fireproof bag between the ruins, a riddle inside."

She felt her interest growing once more, a strange sensation to get her hands on a personal note from the killer sent a tingle down her spine. "What does it say?" Her voice was a greedy push, her eyes alert and sharp.

"'don't know yet, but we can have a look at it as soon as the forensics are finished with it."

"Alright." She felt the thrill flooding her nerves, something she didn't felt since deciding to hunt killers, to become a Profiler.

Her gloves left a squeaking sound as she ripped them off her hands, rumpling them in the process. She kept them in her hand with a reminder to throw them away later.

Hermione handed the file back to James hesitantly, holding onto it a tad longer. "I need a copy of the records, as well as all the documents and medical reports you have. I need the riddles, the photos and the liberty to do my researches my way."

She was already composing a dozen arguments if James would refuse to any of her wishes, but the man surprised her. He nodded and said with an implicitness she rarely heard before, "Of course."

She waited for another moment but he continued, unaffected. "I'll talk to Albus tomorrow, he'll give you the security level you need."

"Thank you." Excitement and gratefulness swayed in her voice. She was determined to find a pattern in the homicides, or at least a clue in the riddle the killer left behind.

Obviously startled, she bit down on her lip, tearing at the thin layer of skin in the process. A bad habit she tried to control most of the times, but forgot about it the moment she experienced emotional encroachment.

James packed the file away and asked curiously, his voice hopeful to catch a detail or explanation he hadn't heard already. "So, what did you find out?"

"Not much," Hermione shot right back. She flipped trough her notebook again and stopped at the last page, shaping her thoughts and notes into intelligible sentences. The pen rested in her hand and served as a pointer for her explanations. "Male or Female, probably around the same age as Remus. Nice charisma or at least manipulative enough, to get a family to let him enter during their early hours. There was no evidence of a forced entry which tells us someone let him in deliberately - perhaps they knew him, but it's more likely that they just didn't find him suspicious which adds again to nice charisma." She listed off from what she gathered and her tone and voice grew faster and thrilled with every word escaping her lips. „There was also no sign of a fight, hence he probably downed Remus first. After, he stunned Mrs. Lupin, then the boy. Perhaps he used some narcotics, but that's part of the laboratory to find out. He's highly likely very intelligent and works at a high position - if not, his genius is underestimated, but I need more data to read more into this."

She turned from James to face the chair, pointing with her pen at it while she continued with her speech. "High brains are also an indication for the clinical state of the crime scene, he planned this from the tiniest detail to the biggest outcome. He feels safe and knows his superiority-"

"How could you possibly know that?" interrupted Snape in a blatant manner, but Hermione didn't bother about it, and proceeded in the same unabashed approach.

"-the canister. He left it behind because he knew that even with the facts right before our eyes we would never find him. Not like this." She took a deep breath, a smug expression on her face as Snape fell silent."„Relating to this crime only, I'd say he has a flexible job and is athletic, or at least sporty enough to run some miles. Perhaps his hobbies contain something alongside jogging or running. He most likely came by foot, trough the woods and obliterated his traces when returning the same way. At a rough estimate someone with a bit of training needs at least half an hour to an hour, starting point at Wallington."

Her eyes caught the glance between Snape and James, and she took the opportunity to take some breaths in-between. Her voice grew worn, but the excitement pushed her on, eager to tell her observations. She turned the page on her notebook and continued.

"Back to the job. Time and complexion of the crime scene tell us that the killer works on a freelance base or at least has a job with flexible times. The crime happened yesterday, Wednesday, a business day in the early morning hours. The boy was still in his pajamas, Mrs. Lupin's nightgown has been found in close range of the chairs, the bomb exploded around 9 a.m. The distance from here to the department adds up to half an hour if you take the car. Why wasn't the boy in school? Why weren't Mr. and Mrs. Lupin at work? The answer is simple: the murderer came in the early hours. Probably even before breakfast, the kitchen table is unlaid - we could argue that the murderer cleared it up before leaving but I highly doubt that, considering that he left the canister behind. I doubt Mrs**.** Lupin was still alive when Remus drove away. Neither do I believe, that the boy survived longer than ten minutes as soon as Remus was out of the house. He needed the boy to convince Remus, but as soon as he was assured that the bomb was on his way…"

She left the rest unsaid and cleared her throat once, twice. The words were spurting out of her mouth and she suddenly felt relegated to her college years, when her thesis was double the length as requested and her professors already rolled their eyes each time she had another question, another chance to correct their courses. But neither James nor Snape, whom she could definitely depict as some grumpy chemistry teacher, said another word. Instead they listened closely.

"This place is quite isolated. I'm not too hopeful to get any information if we're doing some interrogation in the neighbourhood. I don't know how much I conjecture with this, considering that I don't know his other murders. I'll need to have a look at the other crime scenes and reports to say more about the choice of his victims. To put it in a nutshell, our suspect is preferably male, in his mid to end forties, slightly sportive, most likely successful in his job but socially withdrawn, intelligent, manipulative, unscrupulous, boastful and proud."

Her cheeks flushed a light reddish pink while her speech came to its climax and she stopped with the last syllable, mauling at her lip again. "Of course, everything's absolute speculative as long as I don't have the remnant facts," she added once more, but fell silent after.

Abashed silence spread over them and Snape was the first one to find his voice again, but it was still as annoyed as before. He took a step forward and his arms crossed right over his chest with ease, a manner he seemed to have incorporated since years. "I'll apply some pressure on my men and the ballistics. If you're lucky you'll have the results and reports on Saturday."

James nodded automatically and rolled the file in his hand to fidget with it. _A habit to cover up his tension, _Hermione thought.

"Mrs Granger." Snape tilted his head, which might have been an appreciative nod, but most likely it was a mere sign of politeness. He left before Hermione could say anything else. She turned to James once more, the cruelty of the room weighing heavy on all of their shoulders. A dark glimmer reflected in the photographs and she could see how James' eyes rested on the middle one, a picture of him, Remus and Sirius during their college years. They looked all incredibly young and she noticed the obvious similarity between Harry and his father. There was another boy on it, but Hermione never saw him before and had the dignity to drop the question on her lips.

Instead she asked something personal and her voice changed from professional to vulnerable in a matter of seconds. "How's Harry?" Concern was written all over her face and she felt the familiar pain to sorrow over Harry's wellbeing. She was used to it by now. You couldn't be friends with Harry Potter without worrying about a dozen things at once.

"He'll be fine," James offered, a tad pressed, voice solid. He ripped his eyes off the picture and looked at Hermione again, hiding his emotions behind glasses as big as his eyes. Hermione knew this mode of behaviour just too well, Harry used it all too often. "You could visit him."

"Perhaps I will." She gave him a reassuring nod which he responded after some seconds.

"Well, let's hope Snape will bring the reports soon. Shall I take you along back to London?"

"No, it's fine. I came by car." A small, calm smile graced her full lips as she declined politely but joined James nevertheless to leave the vile crime scene behind.

They left the house in comfortable silence and her nose hit fresh air. The officers standing guard put the crime scene tape back on the door and James escorted her to her car, where he saw her off a minute later as his phone started to ring again.

Hermione opened the vehicle door and needed to put a lot of effort in the act since it jammed all the time. She sat down on the cushioned car seat, closed the door behind and slapped her bag on the passenger seat. Seconds passed and she needed to hold onto the steering wheel for a moment, the nausea from the horror she just experienced nearly overwhelming her.

The odour that filled the car was a mixture of the lemon concentrate from her windshieldwasher system as well as her own perfume. She breathed deep in and out. Several times. But the disgusting stench of molten flesh and bile that clung to her nose didn't want to leave her.

She turned on the radio and started the car.

Static was all that followed.

* * *

**ooo**

**_On a scale for cruelty the Lupin murderers certainly reached one of the highest levels, however it isn't the worst I could let you experience. People with a certain kind of familiar aspect may argue that my matters were already the most horrible case scenario. _**

**_In time you'll learn that you should expect even worse in my game._**

**_I'm not just any killer._**

**_And I win._**

**_Everytime._**


	3. Two

**A/N:** I'm really sorry that this update took me so long. I should warn you, this is the unbeta version of the chapter and I'll upload the betaed version as soon as glorious Nerys finishes it and I have the time to do so. Real life is catching up on me at the moment and I won't be online for the next two weeks so I thought I'd share this chapter with you because you already waited for so long. Thanks for all the support, reviews and followers - I really appreciate it, you guys are the best!

I should mention that this chapter is by far the most cruel one I ever wrote and everyone should stay away who cannot stomach graphic depictions of violence, torture and death.

As always, Hermione's ideas and thoughts are in italic.

Out of copyright issues I couldn't post the text of one of the riddles, whoever wants to have the full text can google it, it's not that big, just type: Borges House of Asterion Text - and it should be the first link you get.

Next chapter will be fun because we'll finally meet Tom (as he already announced in the prologue) so I hope you're all ready? ;)

* * *

**ooo**

**Nothing is easier than to denounce the evil doer; Nothing more difficult than understanding him.**

**-Fyodor Dostoevsky**

**ooo**

_The world has definitions and categories for everything and anything: for plants, for animals, even for trivialities, such as the breeding of paramecia. Since 1880 Profilers try to divide murderers in so-called murder criterions, certain key characteristics that represent the pit of human nature. There are seven categories, all with corresponding definitions; they're called the seven sins of murder._

_First: Satisfaction of Sex Drive_

_So-called sex killers kill their victims to reach climax during the slaying. Sometimes they kill the victim first and satisfy their needs on the dead body - it's called necrophilia._

_Second: Avarice_

_Here the increase of acquisitiveness to an unhealthy, uncommon, debauched measure drives the killer. Sometimes they murder to spare expenditures._

_Third: Base Motives_

_This is a vast division. Emotions such like revenge, envy, hate, anger, racial hate, disappointment during sex, compulsive egoism, and way more belong to this category. Basely is a motive as soon as it's driven by unrestrained instinctive self-seeking. It's reprehensible for common people, despicable._

_Fourth: Malevolence_

_Someone kills in malevolence when the killer consciously knows and sees its victims harm- and defencelessness, and takes advantage of it during the killing act. It's also counted to malevolence if you kill someone out of the blue or from behind._

_Fifth: Cruelty_

_When the murder exposes its victim to particular severe corporal or mental tortures out of relentless, callous attitude, it's categorised with the murder criterion‚ Cruelty._

_Sixth: Homicidal_

_Homicidal means to use resources during the killing act, whose effect you aren't able to control properly. Their application is often used to kill or hurt a lot of people at once. For example through arson, explosions, gasifications._

_Seventh: Bloodlust_

_This is the darkest and by far the most gruesome of them all. Someone who kills out of bloodlust has an unnatural pleasure to extinct another human life. The only purpose this person has is the death of another, mostly unknown, human being. They kill out of curiosity, out of idle boast or pure amusement. The only pinpoint of light is that it's eminently rare represented among murderers. _

**ooo**

Chief Dumbledore's Office was surprisingly disorganised - though not really untidy, it just verged on being so. The room was spacious. However, every little corner of available surface was coated with books; his table was cluttered with papers and files, boxes of chocolates and boiled sweets, as well as a Newton cradle that was still swinging. She could't quite identify which wood the furniture was made of, but it was fair and nearly yellowish - spruce, she guessed.

A quick glance on her watch told her that she was already waiting half an hour. She sighed, exasperated, huffed trough her nose, and crossed her arms. Being summoned before the Chief could just mean two things: either she got a promotion or a reprimand. Considering her short recruitment, she didn't bet on the first one. Though she couldn't think about anything she had done to earn the second one either.

The door opened just mere minutes later, and Hermione mechanically rose and adjusted her blouse once more before taking the extended hand of Chief Dumbledore. The man was in his late sixties, but years as the head of the MI6 had worn him out. Hermione could see wrinkles and dimples around his eyes and the corners of his mouth, silent witnesses of the penury this man had already seen in his life. Surprisingly his appearance stood in biting sharp contrast to his office. Hair backcombed and beard trimmed, the man looked sophisticated with a certain kind of wit behind his glasses over bright blue eyes - the suit he was wearing was just another indication for this.

"Mrs. Granger, I'm glad we finally found the time to meet in person." His handshake was firm and warm, as was his voice. Hermione could see why people seemed to idolise this man, and how he could ask attention in a room with ease.

"Chief Dumbledore, the pleasure is all mine."

"I'm afraid our time is limited. There are a bunch of interviews I will need to give later." He sighed as if to emphasise how much he despised the spotlight on his person. The reporters were already baring their teeth to ask the most obnoxious questions no one really had an answer to. It was as if they'd sit in their rooms and agonise which questions were the most irreconcilable for the cases - terrible little bloodhounds.

"James told me you were involved on the Lupin crime scene investigations?" Dumbledore continued as soon as he placed himself in a large desk chair, which was half-covert in blankets, worn sack coats, and surprisingly, a lot of ties.

"Yes, sir." The upcoming pictures of the scene were so grotesque and barbarous, yet still so vivid before her eyes that she needed a moment to dwell on her words, pivoting them on her tongue before she finally added, "It was … nightmarish."

Dumbledore didn't even grimace.

"I saw the pictures." His voice was calm like a river and nearly emotionless, as if he tried to shut it out, but his eyes were something else entirely, nearly gleaming with something wild and determined. "I think we agree that he must be stopped?"

"Of course."

He leaned backwards and gave her a nod while he searched for something on his desk. He grabbed a sheet of paper from under a pile of books, and for a second, Hermione thought he'd read its content, but then his voice filled the room once more, "James gave me a brief summary about your presumptions of him."

"You mean Lord Voldemort?" She felt silly the moment she asked for it - why should she think James meant presumptions about himself at all - but Dumbledore regarded her merely with an amused smile, nothing intimidating.

"Yes. Impressive indeed."

A decent blush graced both of her cheeks now, and once more, she bit her lip as her fingers played with the hem of her blouse, her fingertips rubbing over the silky material in a nervous manner. She wasn't used to so much praise from people in higher positions; mostly she was frowned upon, sometimes even scolded for her higher intellect and unconventional ways of thinking. A compliment like such, especially from someone like Albus Dumbledore, felt awfully out of place for Hermione, like praise she didn't deserve. So she mumbled, humble and a tad nervous, "It's all just that, sir, presumptions. As soon as I get the older files, I'll be able to make a better profile."

"Right. That's why I called you here in first place." A serious tone intermixed with the playful sound of the Chief's voice. His left hand seemed to open a drawer and rummage in it, but Hermione couldn't see anything helpful from her position before the desk and her growing flurry increased with every passing minute. A second later Dumbledore took his hand out of the drawer and revealed a golden badge. It was the same size as a police badge, with a gilded surface and a raptor Hermione never saw before - the beak was longer and a lot more pointed than a hawk's, the tail feathers were curved and peacock-like - and in a delicate curved scroll were the letters OotP perforated. "This is the badge for an investigative commission I assembled myself. The Order of the Phoenix."

Her eyes were still entranced by the golden badge when the Chief reached over the desk and laid the cold metal in her smaller hands. Reverent her thumb brushed over the gilded face, drawing the shades and slots of the medal absently, her mind racing when she asked hesitantly, agitated, "Thank you Sir, but I don't understand?"

"The Order of the Phoenix includes the brightest brains of the MI6 Mrs. Granger, all of them chosen to stop Voldemort. The badge gives you access to the archive and every other information you'll need."

The answer sounded far too smooth, too rehearsed as if he said it a dozen times before. Scepticism raised in her chest and she looked up to meet Dumbledore's glance, her voice reluctant. "But why me? Certainly you had another profiler - what happened to him?"

She could feel the clear restraint in the Chief's voice, but his eyes never left hers. A clacking sound reverberated in the hollow room and she could almost feel how he dwelled on his words, chose them carefully which made her just all the more agnostic.

"Let's say he couldn't handle it anymore. I'm afraid but that's all I have to say about it." Dumbledore stopped any further protest with a wink of his hand. A sigh left his old lips the moment he noticed the growing suspicion Hermione put in her composure. He cleared his throat and started once more, "Mrs Granger, James told me you saw clues and evidences on this crime scene that nobody else noticed. You're a very clever girl and I'm confident -"

The door suddenly bursted open and a second later revealing a strict woman in her late fifties, rigorous eyes and a severe sense of fashion - the pencil skirt was tight, her hair in a bun and small, lathy glasses were put neatly on her nose. The woman gave Hermione's existence a mere nod before she turned on Dumbledore again, voice almost reproving, "Sir? Apologies to interrupt you but your interview with the daily prophet waits."

"Give me a sec Minerva, I'll be there in a minute." They waited both for Minerva to leave the office again before he resumed his speech, this time far more concerned than before with an urgent tone that was swaying right with the words. "Mrs. Granger, I trust in your abilities, and perhaps you should do too. The world is a dangerous place to live in, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

_Did he really just quote Einstein at me? _

They raised simultaneously from their chairs and Hermione cleared her throat, added, "I'll try my best, Sir." They shook hands once more but everything felt a bit too rushed, too scampered - as if he would want to get rid of her. Perhaps it was just her imagination, after all the man was the Chief of the MI6 and he certainly didn't had the time to have afternoon tea parties. Upon leaving the office, Dumbledore grabbed one of the strayed ties.

"I'll attend the meeting as soon as James puts it up. Until then, Mrs Granger."

He led her out of the office, a strong hand on her shoulder that pushed her out of the door and she followed his lead. McGonnagall was still sitting on her desk when both of them entered the lobby, raising as soon as she spotted the Chief right behind Hermione. A quick glance on the top papers were sufficient to know that they were dealing with Voldemort. Most certainly a press conference of some kind.

"Goodbye, Sir.", she gave a last nod to the head of the office and retreated to the far end of the lobby where a glass lift was already waiting to take her back down to her private office. She pressed the button and waited, the golden badge still shimmering in her hand. It was inevitable that Lord Voldemort had to be stopped, she needed to find a clue to bring them closer. With a loud tinkle the lift came to a halt and she entered it, pressing the button for the archive. As the glass doors were sealing again, she noticed that Dumbledore never once called him Lord. Just Voldemort.

She wondered what this would mean.

**ooo**

The archives were subterranean and reached from the West to the Eastern riverside of the Tames. They had been build in 1884, renovated once in 1947 right after the Second World War, and a second time in 2012 to relocate the main base where they kept older files and special folders. There had been a debate some months ago if all the files should be exclusively converted into digital data. But people voted against it - after all it's easier to hack some digital servers nowadays than break in and pilfer some handwritten files - so they kept both.

The lift stopped and Hermione stepped out of it while her hands were busied to bring the wild mess on her head in a ponytail - obviously the thick bulk of locks wouldn't be tamed to easily and she needed three more attempts until they finally clamped together. Her eyes darted trough the different paths that the hallway divided into and decided to take a sharp turn left, to the Ongoing Unsolved Cases department.

Upon arriving at the information counter, she showed her police badge and a young man led her into a separated compartment. The room was large but crowded, with shelves full of boxes and files, a bunch of desktop computers were neatly placed side by side, forming some kind of wall behind which a shock was waiting. Hermione got closer to the desk and waited until the man wearing a brown cardigan turned around.

"Hey Neville," she raised her hand to give Neville a small wave and leaned herself over the counter right in front of her. Some of the files needed to be pushed and moved aside so she could at least have a decent look at Neville, but finally she found a place to rest her arms.

"Hermione, good to see you. How are you?" The boy in front of her reminded nothing of the boy she met in high school; the chubby body shaped over the years in an athletic form, the round chin made place for a pointed facial structure with beautiful teddybear eyes, and even if the geek-ness was still recognisable it gave him some kind of charm. His voice was deeper as she remembered it, but friendly nevertheless.

She gave him a honest smile and couldn't stop the excitement that crept into her voice, "I'm fine, thanks. What about yourself?"

"The usual - coffee and Internet, what do I want more?", a small laughter left his lips, a mixture between a dark judder and croaky, something that had a strangely nice ring to it and she couldn't help but fall into his laugh, gave a small one herself. It felt good when the weight of your shoulders lifted for some minutes.

Soon enough she pulled herself together once more, the stiffness returning to her shoulders and her tone a tad more serious when she inquired, "Listen, can you gather me everything you have in the records about Lord Voldemort?" Without further instructions her hand grasped in her jeans pocket and pulled out the shining golden badge that still looked like it was fresh out of the press.

Neville's eyes widen in amazement and for a second Hermione really taught he would be generally surprised, but then he opened the top drawer on his desk and took the same badge out between some Snickers and staples. Overall the badge looked haggard and fusty, the golden shimmer non existent anymore. It reminded her of old gold that dimmed over the time.

"Wow, you got promoted huh? Seems like we're both riding the crest of a wave. I got my badge some days before Remus blew the whole department up… I mean, before… you know, the incident." His tone changed rapidly, excitement and guilt switching and Hermione needed to suppress a laugh at Neville's clumsiness and the way his older self seems to press trough his pore. She almost felt relegated to her high school years, when she constantly paired herself with Neville so neither Ron nor Harry could take advantage of her intelligence during the tests - after all she was the only one of the trio that studied to take up good grades at all. Neville had always been this alien kid with eyes as big as a deer in the headlights, the one that dropped the bricks and it amused her terribly that some things never really changed.

"Anyways," the boy, rather man, changed the topic once more and raised from his office chair to round the counter, his tone far more easy than mere seconds ago, "I put anything from the cases in a special folder, I'll go and take it." His standing figure was even taller than Hermione had memorised and she stared amazed at broad shoulders that disappeared between shelves, bulging to all sides. She taped her badge against the plastic covered counter several times to give her hands anything to do while her eyes casted furtive glances down to the records on Neville's desk.

"Have you talked to Harry yet?"

His voice ripped her out completely startled, eyes alert if he had already returned but the brown cardigan was still half hidden behind one of the metal shelves, so she breathed out and put the badge in her hands away, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. Her mind was racing and a good portion of guilt crept into her conscious, made her taste the bitter smack of betrayal on her tongue. She hadn't spoken to Harry yet. She hadn't even phoned.

Clearing her throat, she dwelled on the words that felt biting on her lips, almost corrosive, and she was walking on eggshells here to try to find the right words. After some seconds she settled on casual, "Didn't had the chance, the case keeps me very busy." A pause, then, "What about you?"

His head bumped up besides the racks and he puckered up his lips, shook his head. A second later he disappeared again, this time far afield but his voice was still audible over the boxes of cases and investigations. "But I met Ginny yesterday, she said he keeps it together. But, you know Harry, he wants to go after the bastard."

_Considering Harry's bad luck he'd just end up in a mess once more._

She bit her lips and thought about their last summer during college, when a life like this was far away and no one bore their future in mind besides her - always the wiseacre, the reasonable of them. Her mind drifted away but was soon enough back in reality as Neville appeared out of the blue, records and files on his arm, none of them thicker than a poetry journal. Wonderstruck over the light literature, she accepted them and stacked them on her arm, nudging the badge back into her pocket.

Neville was strangely amused and gave her a cocky smile, leaning his hip against the counter. "Here you go. Oh, the new results haven't reached me yet. I think they'll arrive during the day. As soon as I have them, I'll send them to your account." With his free hand, he opened the door so she could pass.

_Very gentleman like. _

"Thanks Neville. See you soon."

The records in her hand felt strangely heavy and with every step she took her excitement grew more and more. Finally she'd be able to find something, to have a clue what went on in his mind. She was already half along the aisle when Neville's voice followed her, a reminder for prospective meetings.

"Bye Hermione, oh and next time bring some coffee!"

**ooo**

The coffee mug from Florean Fortescue's was gripped hard between three fingers and her thumb while her index pressed the doorknob down to reveal her office behind the door. It was small, but comfy with a huge empty bookcase on the end of the east wall which reminded unconsciously of a box full of books which still needed to be cleared out. But for now the spot on the floor right beside the bookcase seemed like a good place for it. The furnitures were low-key, an office chair from the mall, desk, bookcase and a shelf from Ikea and everything else were souvenirs from travels, trifles that gathered around during her first years as an intern in different departments. There was even a mobile metal pin board with sharpies and pins had a place opposites to the bookcase and Hermione couldn't remember where she got it, by no stretch of her imagination. By now she was sure it just added itself to her collection.

With a loud thud the records were placed right on top of her notes from Remus' case while she put the mug on the side so it wouldn't balance wobbly on top of the files. She peeled the blazer off her shoulders and hung it neatly on the little garderobe behind the door. Her fingers fumbled with the scrunchy to tighten her hair once more before she went back to her desk and put the sleeves of her simple white blouse up to the elbows. She granted herself a last draught of coffee before her hands were already busied to clutch at the records and draw them closer.

Four files were spread in front of her and covered the wood of the desk as well as the keyboard of her laptop, which she booted up by pressing the start button and a second later the synthetic blueish light refracted on top of the brownish hardcover-paper that protected each page of the records that they belonged to. At the head of each record was the name of the victim as well as the number under which the file was registered so far - the handwriting was identical for three of them, the fourth had a beautiful curved style, almost italic and Hermione was sure she had seen it before, but she couldn't catch her thought.

Order was her uppermost priority, so she started to flip all the records open and shifted them around until they were assorted by date and not by name - starting with the first victim and ending with the last. Or better the one before Remus.

To her amazement each sheet was marked with the case's number so she could easily remove one of the pages for further investigations and still know to which case it'd belong to put it back later - handy when she'd have a dozen of sheets on her dash later.

First glances trough the records confirmed her thoughts that they were assorted from pictures to reports and at the end of each file was a sheet protector which contained the riddle that was found on the crime scene. The dates were exactly 41 days distant from each other, the locations sounded familiar - all of them in London - but none was connected to the one before, neither to others from the list.

She opened the last drawer of her desk to take a map out of it, neatly folded so it wasn't bigger as a usual letter. Carefully as to not rip the paper, she unfolded it and left her desk to advance towards the metal pin board - the thing would deem useful after all. She spread the map over the whole surface and tightened the corners with magnetic pins that Harry gifted her some years ago - they showed famous little quotes of great minds like Voltaire and Rousseau. There even has been one with a quote from the Queen Mum, but Hermione lost it soon after Harry gave them to her, so she put more attention to them now. circumjacent town like

Some quick steps brought her back to the desk where she withdrew some smaller pins out of the first drawer, just some simple knobs that she labelled from one to five and that she applied to the map a minute later. Each knob showed the place where the victims have been found - but nothing seemed to connect them. Knob number five for the Lupin Case still rested in her open palm because the map solely showed the capital of Great Britain and not the outer or inner boroughs of the county.

A step back helped her to have a better overview over the whole plan that spread in front of her. The crime scenes weren't related in any special matter; neither by distance nor by names or environment. Instead it seemed all pretty random at first glance. The only thing that linked them was the fact that they had all been found or killed in the capital - with a time lag of 41 days.

_All of them had been found in London, so why did he kill Tonks and Edward in Carshalton? Except…_

Her glance rose upwards and caught the address of the Mi6 building, central London, Albert Embankment.

_Except Tonks and Edward weren't the victims in this case. They had been collateral damage. _

She spun the pin between her thumb and index finger some more times, but after a while she realised, that this must be the right assumption to make - as macabre as it was. She pinned knob number five right over the bridge on the thames. Sadly it didn't bring her any step closer to a better explanation how the murderers must been connected, because even with five pins on the pin board she couldn't find a pattern or a design behind it.

A deep sigh left her lips and she pressed them into a fine line, suppressed the urge to start to gnaw on the thin layer of skin again. Another gulp of the coffee helped her to clear her head for a second and she sat down on her desk again, opening the first record right on top.

The record was titled Lavender Brown with the file reference that followed right behind in capital letters and numbers in a fairly messy handwriting - the same that was on the following two records. It was by far the thinest dossier of them all, containing a handful of photos from the crime scene as well as an autopsy report, a report from the police officers that had found her, a report of the SID and the sheet protector along with the riddle. By her side laid her notebook, ready with a pen on it so she could jot down some fast notes if she'd need it.

Hermione started with the general facts that were easily identified in the police report. Lavender Brown, 25 years, european, born and raised exclusively in Britain, average height and weight, intern at a prestigious law firm, found from a jogger in the Guy Street Park, near London Bridge Station. The riddle had been rucked neatly in the left socket of her eye, plasticised so no blood would smear on the paper.

While skimming the text, she took the photos and spread them over her desk to have a better grasp about the crime she read in black ink on white paper. The girl laid facing backwards on the lawn, arms beside her head with bent shoulder- and elbow-joints. Her clothes were noticeable tidy, nothing pointed towards a fight or any other external forceful impact. No dragging traces, no footprints in the mud, nothing.

_As if she had been fallen from the sky._

Her coat was open, sweater and shirt were rucked up to reveal a small stripe of pale skin right over her skirt - pale but unharmed. The report clearly showed no corporal traces, no sexual imprints.

_No sexual offender._

Head and face however were bathed in blood with extensively abrasions who affected the complete skin on front, bridge of her nose, nasal wings and cheekbones. Besides the vast grazes in her face, her upper and lower lids on both eyes were coloured dark violet and blue due to perianal haematoma. The first autopsy report found fly eggs in both lower lids and especially during warm temperatures are flies tending to lay down their eggs already after the first eight hours - preferable in eyelids, nostrils and mouth. No sepsis of the corpse had yet set in.

The report noted moreover that upper and lower jar were both unnaturally versatile, as if the girl had rubber-hinges in her mouth. Another glance to the photos showed the girls maimed face in all glory; her oral cavity was filled with blood and teeth that swam in it, the nasal skeleton was fractured as well, the auricle was blood smeared and their was a note saying that a dark black liquid seeped out of her ear when they turned her around.

_Basal skull fracture._

The most terrifying feature was on the next picture : the officers had pushed her eyelids back to reveal the eyes - but there were none. The report read that the murderer had removed the eyes one by one, carved them out with an anatomical precision. Furthermore both eye sockets were smashed post mortem and the cerebral in that area had been no more than a bloodshot, mushy bulk that rested in the hole like a scoop of ice cream. There had been a frothy bloody fluid in her trachea and in her lungs - a sign of vitality and forensic proof that the victim had been fully conscious during her torture.

It turned her stomach around.

More pictures of the autopsy followed but nothing of importance caught Hermione's eye besides the gouging of her eyes. It was indeed a known criminal behaviour that profilers called depersonalisation. It's a desperately hostile and humiliating act against the victim. The aggressive and brutal approach of the murderer lead often to extreme mutilations that make the victim downright unrecognisable. The perpetrator wants to anonymise his victim, to deprive it of its identity.

_Did he possibly know her?_

Or she, she added in her thoughts but an instinctive feeling told her, that the killer was male. Next up her hands grab the sheet protector and she took out the paper with careful fingers. It was incredibly mundane in the end, a clear bleached sheet, not bigger than a half of a page with a typed message in the central. The script was unconventionally not Times new Roman, but rather Arial - or Helvetica if he used a mac.

**'****the thing sizzled like hot metal dropped in water while I twisted it like an auger. yesvapnputzrgnhzqrrmfyqdtdsooxmsazymihiqsuxx'**

Puzzled Hermione read the message again and again but she couldn't read more in it as what the Decrypter and Neville already worked out. The text was part of the Odyssey, book nine if she recalled it rightly, when Odysseus puts the Cyclops' eye out.

_Could be an indication to the murder._

The code however was nothing she suspected at all when James mentioned them some days ago in Lupin's house. The apposition of the letters as well as the length gave no hint to anything on the case - neither did the text. A quick glance to the attached report told her, that the cryptography department had tried any known cipher method to decode it - algorithmic, symmetric, asymmetric.

She made a photo with her mobile camera and jotted the notes as well as the whole riddle down in her notebook and grabbed the next record to continue her investigation - after all she couldn't lose any time.

The record read Mykew Gregorovitch accompanied with the corresponding file reference - just like the time before. It was a bit thicker than the one before and Hermione had the slight suspicion that it was due to the fact that they hadn't known that Lavender's murder would grow into a serial killer eventually. The reports changed from the official London Police Department to MI6 files right after the first page and this time there were a lot more photographs than in the one before. Nearly a dozen, she'd guess.

Everything in this file read surprisingly flat; Mykew Gregorovitch, 61 years, professor at the London Metropolitan University teaching chemistry, Russian, born and raised in Kasan and immigrated nearly forty years ago, found by a farmer of Freightliners Farm in the Paradise Park - or at least what had been left over from him, because the only thing what really had been found was a head.

Buldged eyeballs, impaired cornea, pale skin, almost green and grey due to the putrefaction, exposed nasal skeleton and nasal septum. Both auricles intact, as well as the jawbones and all of his teeth - they were affected by his age, but not trough his death. Greasy, pastellesque malacia of cervical visceral. More details were unfortunately not discernible because the decay process had bereaved all shapes and contours of the face. Only the stubble gave him away as male.

The head had obviously been stacked in a water tank or container of some sort to expedite the deterioration of the visible facial parts extremely and later it had been brought to the crime scene. The body had never been found and the agents responsible for this case identified Gregorovitch trough his natural dentition - and with the help of his local dentist. For a second Hermione searched for the dentist's name and breathed relieved when she read that it was neither her mother's nor her father's name.

The photographs were as worse as the ones of Lavender and the flashlight illuminated the scene in a grotesque and bright way that made the scene all the more disgusting. The water had macerated the skin and transformed it in a greyish substance which reminded Hermione of rubber. The glassy, almost pupilless eyes gushed out of their eye sockets and the left side looked as if some animal had eaten flesh of it which exposed jaw musculature and even the molars and distorted the face in a ghoulish grimace. The wound edge of his neck was neatly cut, almost careful disrupted so nothing looked rough or frayed but clean and sharp.

Any vitality signs which could have shown if the head had been decapitated ante mortem or post mortem, couldn't be found during the investigations. It was indeed possible to determine the murder weapon based on the structure or the pattern of the wounds - for example with a saw, an axe or anything alike because any tool leaves traces on soft tissue and bones behind. But the water had washed out all the bleedings on the lesion-rims - if there had been any at all.

_Damn._

With a frustrated groan she ran her hand over her eyes and flipped trough the record once more to take a look at the riddle. She stopped however midways and gazed at a little note which she had overlooked the first time. In the same curvy handwriting that she already saw on the label of the last record was written: _steel rope, 0.6 diameter._

A mixture of excitement and the thrill of a hunt jolted down her spine and her hands were already searching for the picture of the wound, the clean cut on the skin and it fitted, the steel rope, it would answer the question but why wasn't it in the official report? Her notebook almost filled itself with her thoughts and observations but nothing else could be deduced out of these papers so she put them away and took the riddle that was still waiting in the protection sheet for her to have a look.

The first thing she noticed was that the paper was the same as the time before, as well as the script. However the text was this time huge, three pages. Hermione recognised the text within the first few lines and she was reminded of the speech she had with James some days ago, when he mentioned no one knew this text - not even Chief Dumbledore. For a second she was inclined to deem them all as uncultured primates - How could they not recognise Borges? - but she stopped herself and concentrated back on the text again.

Again, it gave nothing away, this time not even a hint to the murder itself so she went on to the letters but again, nothing seemed approximately reasonable.

_doxexbnxmnhgsaqhqnrvnympaofemiokzrpims, perhaps every second letter? perhaps every third? or some letter behind? _

Her pen scrolled over her notebook but even after some attempts nothing sounded close to a solution so she ripped the page out and throw it in the bin.

She felt a sudden tension building in her shoulders, so she rolled them several times before she took the next file in her hand, already skimming the page for the obvious facts. You could clearly see that the MI6 took this one far more important than one of the others before, the structure and even the careful details that were all listed in side pages. Sheets of sheets on researches from the SID were attached but none of them held any informations that brought them further in their investigations.

This time, the victim was female again, and for a second she thought that she had found a pattern in rotatory genders - first a female victim, then a male, female again… a quick glance on the next record confirmed her suspicion at first - the next had been a male again. But then she reminded herself that Remus had been male too, and so her theory lost itself in the wind.

She sighed deeply and started to read again.

Hepzibah Smith, 56 years, unemployed, american, born in Kansas and raised in Westminster, average height and obese figure, found in the Royal Botanic Gardens by a gardener in the early morning hours.

Hermione took the photographs out of the file and spread them all over her desk again. An action that she regretted a second later when her eyes glanced at the ghastliness and ferocity in which the woman has been disfigured. Her underjaw has been completely broken out of its bone settings, probably with the same saw that he had used to remove her upper jaw. Both maxillas as well as the jaw angles had been ripped out of their structures so the killer could excoriate the skin from her nasal wings down to her neck. The vocal folds were exposed, the flesh from chin and mouth hung limp and in folds. In consequence of the missing jawbones her face looked like a shrivelled balloon.

_Looks like a death mask._

Everything was soaked in blood, especially the grass and soil under her which looked like a giant red sponge - but the woman's skin was pale, almost without any colour due to the high blood loss. Both of her hands had been cut off sharply in the middle of the wrist bones - both missing, as the jaws. The autopsy report reads moreover, that they discovered a blood aspiration in her lungs - in other words both jaws had been sawed out alive and blood had run in her throat and larynx, coercing her to breathe it in.

A shiver went down on Hermione's spine and she shuddered against the sudden coldness in the room. She could taste bile on her tongue, the disgust she faced right now flipped her stomach another turn so she took another sip of her coffee mug. She didn't even register that it had gone cold during the passed hours.

Whoever killed the woman was no fool, by no means. Many killers draw their knowledge out of detective novels or hollywood movies and most of them thought, that pulling all teeth from a body would veil the identity of their victims. Just a few knew that this exacerbated an investigation but didn't stop it. The removal of under and upper jaw as well as both hands however was obviously the hand of a professional.

Another note was attached to one of the pictures of a bleeding stump, reading the same message as in the last record again: _steel rope, 0.6 diameter._

This could indeed explain the clean cuts again but it wasn't confirmed yet, so she jotted it down in her notebook for further investigations.

More reports and files followed and Hermione skimmed the texts, read over notes that James had written down with his messy handwriting, read for anything that aroused her interest but nothing seemed to bear a clue or further indications. She was as clueless as James it seemed. In the end, she went on to the riddle.

This time, the text was far smaller and she wasn't really surprised to find the same bleached paper, the same script once more. Again, she recognised the text at first glance, but who would not?

**'****You think perhaps this is the Duke of Athens, who in the world put you to death. Off with you, monster, this one does not come instructed by your sister, but of himself to observe your punishment in the lost kingdom. etslamzwdozhohtvohwsttslaevnapggudgg'**

_Dante's Inferno, XII, 16-21. But the letters are still a mystery for me._

The only thing she had noticed so far, was that none of them had been a prime number, nor had they anything to do with the number 41. She googled the quote of Dante with her laptop, but nothing made sense concerning neither the barbarous murder of Hepzibah Smith nor the letters at the end of it.

_The lines belonged to Virgil, Canto XII is called Inferno, 16-20 in comparison with the numbers? What do I miss? What do I miss?_

Her pencil circled Canto XII at least four times before she let out an exasperated sigh. Her eyes felt heavier and heavier with each passing minute. She rubbed the tiredness of her eyes and put the files on the far end of her desk to reach for the last one. After all, at least she wanted to read in all of them today. She could grapple with the riddles later.

The last folder was the one with the neat handwriting on it and astonishingly it was ordered and tidied in a remarkable way - reports were assorted by date, pictures were accompanied with notes from the reports and important facts were even highlighted with a yellow colour so she didn't need to skim the text several times to grasp all the vital data. It looked almost too perfect - wouldn't it be for the abomination that mirrored on the pictures right in front of her.

The first thing she noticed was a burned corpse which had been downright skeletonized from the flames. Arms and legs were bent like a foetal, as if the victim had tried to protect itself from the blaze - but no posture could protect you from such a fire. The explosion had swept across the victim with such a destructive force, that even his incisors were burnt in his jawbones. Bones had splintered from the cranial roof and out of the hole oozed charred brain tissue. It was repulsive, at best.

Her first instinct was to flip the file shut and take several deep breaths to calm down again. Her mind was racing and it made her feel dizzy, why she kept drinking the cold coffee out of her mug until it was empty. She needed to focus again - and ignore the chill that crept over her spine from time to time again. This killer was far more dangerous then she had ever imagined - and she wasn't sure if one man or woman alone was able to do all of these murders. Each of them bore another hand, all of them were unique, almost exceptional and conspicuous that she didn't know how to encompass this in one single human being. It was thrilling - it was frightening, nevertheless.

Her heart slowed down again and she waited until the silence of the room stopped to threaten but instead welcomed her again. Then she picked up the record and flipped trough the first page, the one with the vital information that she skipped half an hour ago.

Cedric Diggory, 22 years, sport student of Cambridge, european, born and raised in London, tall, found in front of St Thomas Church from a nun in the early morning.

The fire had burnt any facial features down until they weren't recognisable anymore, the body was a mere scaffold of seared bones over which his charred flesh disseminated like a patchwork rug. The whole adipose tissue and muscles were scorched - not really as the fat of a human's body obtains oily components which can burn at high temperatures. The skin was nearly non existent anymore and the shreds of flesh that still clung to his bones were burst and red under a carbonised black surface.

_Almost like lava in a volcano. _

The report had a remark that they couldn't reconstruct his body size or weight anymore, because the fire burned down all the important components. Testimonies confirmed later, that he was an good looking boy with athletic scholarship.

The whole cranium was coloured in ashes and grey with empty eye sockets that reminded her of a skull. Upper and Under jaw were both ruins out of bones, several teeth were completely burnt and the tongue had the state of cooked flesh. His locomotor system - elbows, cartilages, sinews - were seared to a black mass that looked like rubber of care tyre.

The pictures showed a black-brown, molten amorphous masse, upon which just the skeleton skull as well as the remnants of arms and legs were faintly reminiscent of a man. The explosion hit the boy apparently frontal because his chest cavity was blown open, three rips were completely smashed from the fire, the others towered partly black and bent out of the torso like the planks of a burnt ship.

She could see lungs and diaphragm which were shrunk to a quarter of their usual size and due to the heat the air in the intestine had warmed up and caused the abdominal captivity to pop from the pressure. Parts of the small bowel which gushed out of the wound and dispensed black over the whole lower stomach.

_Eels._

Out of chest- and abdominal cavity leaked besides the smell of scorched flesh another penetrant scent: petrol. The first that came to her mind was that this could hint that someone used a combustive agent. But a second glance to the report showed her, that someone already made a note about this - the same one that noticed things before.

More reports and pictures followed, one more callous than the next and she flipped till the end to have a look at the riddle which was almost innocently against the sadism she just witnessed.

**'****The Abbey burned for three days and three nights, and the last efforts were of no avail. mlaidtdqnamoyemxekbqvseyfznwqdnf'**

She recognised the text but couldn't class it at first so she looked it up in the file and was surprised, to see that it was an excerpt out of 'The Name of the Rose'. It had been ages since she read that book and it was quite obvious that the first message referred to the killing method once more.

_Perhaps the other messages were meant to describe the crimes too?_

A frustrated curse left her lips and she shut the laptop exasperated, leaned back in the embrace of her office chair.

The records didn't give a lot away - or anything at all, really. The murders had been bestial and brutish at the best, no traces had been left behind, no clues or hints behind these riddles. The killer was clever, rather genius and that made him into something dangerous, something perilous.

The juristic definition to describe a murderer implies, that the suspect needs to act out of one of the seven murder criterions. Her despair was clearly written on her face because this one wasn't a normal murderer, by no means, for none of the seven categories could be exclusively allocated to him.

_He's not just any serial killer. He's a predator._

Her hand ran over her hair that was still tightened in a ponytail and she opened it up to lift a bit the tension that built on her head and announced a soon to come headache - or worse a migraine. She felt her eyes burn from hours of reading in halogen light and her bones weighted down with weariness.

_Better to combat the fatigue with a mug of coffee - or rather an espresso. _

She pushed her chair back and stretched her arms wide over her head, blinking several times.

She couldn't fight the yawn that escaped her dainty lips.

**ooo**

"Hermione?"

Alarmed, the mess of wild locks startles up, a frantic look in her big brown eyes that reflects the bright neon lights and made it difficult to recognise the looming statures right before her. The spectrum of different colour stars was dancing right before her eyes, as if she just had woken up and how could this be possible, had she been asleep at all? Her head felt disoriented, her conscience a bit blurred and she needed to blink several times against the blinding light before smudged edges finally sharpened themselves.

"James? I'm sorry, I didn't notice you." Her voice was sleep drunken, a slur on her lips when she rose and tried to stack the files on her desk. She was thankful for the shadow that James casted on her, so she was shielded by the blinding light once more. As soon as the tiredness left the rest of her body she looked up in James eyes and was immediately met with concern that was written all over his face.

"Well, you were certainly busy it seems," a nod in the direction of her desk was enough to put remind her why she had been tired as hell. A deep blush started to build on her cheeks and she felt the burning skin heated up while her fingers were busied to bundle the records in their usual shape. In the meantime James put a new record on top of the older ones, labeled with Lupin's ID.

"Here, the new files of the Lupin family and the bombing just arrived. I thought I'd bring them, considering that I wanted to talk to you either way." His voice was stern, serious and he couldn't hide the grief that was resonating thick as sea waves in it. For a second Hermione's sense of compassion kicked in, but she suppressed the urge to tell James that everything would be okay soon enough. Perhaps it never would again.

"Always the swot, innit?" Upon hearing the gravelling sound of another voice that just entered the room, Hermione swirled around and found herself face to face with a beautiful marbled man, high cheekbones and grey eyes, a top model haircut for platinum blonde hair.

_Draco Malfoy. _

For ages the boy, now a young man, had made her life as miserable as it possible could be, his rich, presumptuous demeanour, let alone his boastful entity and his snobbish yet bossy attitude has more than once been the reason to to start an intellectual duel - which she almost always won. Sadly the prick was far more intelligent as someone would give him credit for.

Out of habit her voice turned sour and bitter and she forgot the good manners she was so fond of, retorted back, nearly snapped, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you're jealous, Malfoy."

"And what should I be jealous about, Granger?" His reply was a snort and sharp as razor teeth, the same conceited distance in his tone as years ago. He leaned on the nearby desk and Hermione followed his hawk-eyes with every movement, noticed the way they gathered informations from nearby records and loose pages. She felt her body straining, her hackles raising at the sudden intrusion, as if she was a cat waiting for the attack. James stopped her however.

"Okay that's enough", a tad exasperated James intervened and put a stop to their childish battering - and even if Draco acted unaffected like before, Hermione had at least the decency to blush at her naive behaviour. Another sigh followed James lips and the man crossed his arms right before his chest and pushed the glasses on his nose a bit up, a habit that Harry adapted some years ago and that made her always wonder why he never bothered to buy a new one that fit better. "Seems like I don't need to introduce you to each other anymore."

They both shared a quick glanced but neither dared to answer, so they kept silent and waited for James to go on. A silence rested over their heads, not an unpleasant one, and James waited for another protest but when no one said anything, he continued in a calm voice, "As you surely know, we work in teams. Always two by two."

Hermione suspected bad, in fact the following was vaguely perceptible and her eyes already begged James to drop the subject, please don't speak it out. But of course she was met with a cruel faith in the worst shape possible.

"Hermione, Draco will be your partner for an indefinite period of time."

There it was, the cruelty was inevitable.

She struggled hard to keep her face stoical but in the end she grimaced, groaned exasperated, "Isn't there any other option?"

"I'm afraid not", James replied but he didn't look neither too worried nor sorry, instead he had a sparkle of amusement in his voice, "Besides, believe it or not, Draco is an excellent Intelligence Officer and worked on the Voldemort Case since the first victim."

"Splendid." Voice dripping with sarcasm she spared a glance at the supposed James Bond who was still leaning on the desk. She could sense how he observed her out of the corner of his eyes with a certain kind of mirth behind those grey bars and Hermione found it utterly disturbing what he could trigger in her with a single glance - she wasn't stupid, but neither was she blind. Draco had always been a handsome boy but the masculine jawline and the wild hair gave him something extremely dangerous which made her knees weak, her pulse a little faster.

Unfortunately the man in the leather jacket ruined it all when he mentioned casually while flipping trough one of the records (and how in hell did he even get his hands on this?), his voice a tempting flirt, "Come on Granger, your mind, my good looks and LV will be faster behind bars as anyone can say his exorbitant name."

"Perhaps you should start to call him by it instead of shorten his name to the initials of some inflated fashion brand." The verbal counter left her lips before she could stop herself but Draco didn't react on it, bashed it away as some bugging fly of no importance and continued to read trough the record without a second glance or any indications that he had indeed heard her. She sighed in frustration. "Anyway," her hand snatched the file that Draco studied out of his hands and sorted it back where it belonged, chronologically, "let's get to work. There's still a lot to do."

Even before the last syllable left her lips, Draco doffed out of the thick dark leather and hang the jacket that looked far more expensive than anything Hermione owned, on the back of a chair and sat down on it in a swift movement. He grabbed the record again out of the pile that Hermione just sorted a minute ago and before she could do any further protest James already caught her attention, nodding to the door.

"Hermione, at a word?"

She gave a last frown at Draco's attitude who behaved himself as if it was his office and not Hermione's, but she refused to let him get her angry again, so she turned around and followed James' lead out of the room.

The door closed with a faint thud and James looked visible uncomfortable about the topic. He cleared his throat several times and Hermione felt out of place, tapped from one foot to the other while her nervousness displayed right in front of her.

"The funeral will be the day after tomorrow.", he stopped as if to think about a way to describe his next words, and then carefully he resumed once more, "Everyone will be there, including Harry and I thought you should be there too." He made a pause once more and Hermione felt the weight of his words heavy on her shoulders, an invisible question and demand in the same and she needed to think about it, her mind racing and it stopped, so she nodded, replied murmuring, "It's alright. Of course I'll come."

The insecurity on James' shoulders dropped at the same moment as Hermione's increased. The man already made a turn to go, hand in the air with a waving gesture, "Good. I'll see you there."

Hermione watched him go some steps but he stopped soon enough and turned around once more, his expression clearly conflicted - as was his voice. "Oh and because of Draco, give the boy a chance. I know he can be-"

"Boastful? Presumptuous? Vain?"

"- hard to handle. But he's good in his job. Believe me." His smile was weak, almost forced but there was something lingering in his eyes that made his words almost believable.

The girl didn't even try to hide her obvious disdain for the platinblonde man with whom she'd be forced to share an office for the next weeks, and her tone was consequently adjusted to her facial expression, a frown on her lips.

"We'll see about that", there she stopped and gave him a small smile at least that she hoped was somehow reassuring because the fatigue was clearly written all over his composure and Hermione scolded herself inwardly that she hadn't noticed sooner. "Go home James, greet Lilly from me."

"I will, good night Hermione."

Her eyes observed him disappear behind the wall on the far end of the hall and her mind gave her a chance to drift off for some seconds. Working with Draco would be a living hell but perhaps they'd finally find a clue that'd lead them somewhere. Minutes passed but she was still standing on the same spot where James left her. An overwhelming silence laid itself over her like a thick cloak of shadows, but she wasn't afraid but instead leaned into it a bit longer. The distant clacking of heels ripped her out of her stupor. Draco was waiting. A deep exasperated sigh left her lips as she turned around and faced the door to her office once more.

She took the handle and pressed it down.

**ooo**

_As a murderer you should think long and hard about in which qualifications or specs you put your work, so you won't make it to hard for the profilers to categorise you afterwards. You need to fit in the norm, because the worst that can happen to a profiler, is when the murderer doesn't fit in their pattern. Like this most cases will be put away or deemed too hard to close and end up cold in a box in the archives. _

_Of course it's a hard way to be a good killer - not everyone's able to be the next Jack the Ripper, you know? _

_Profilers categorise murderers in seven different groups, but this doesn't leave a big margin for a killer to make a suitable decision.I always wonder in which pattern I fit, which one of the seven delimitations is really appropriate for my actions. Considering all of the seven categories I realised that I'm no person who seeks satisfaction in my murders. I don't bother about avarice or base motives like hate, envy or revenge. I'm adherent to my principles and I want my victims to see me, recognise me even - they should absolutely know who I am. So malevolence isn't an option either. _

_With time I noticed that my qualifications are virtually outstanding when it comes to the categories of cruelty, homicidal or bloodlust. _

_Nevertheless, categories are nothing I support and I absolutely loathe dim and obtuse people who try to pigeon-hole me and put my name in headlines when their little dense brains can't even grasp what the message is behind my oeuvre._

_They should at least give me the respect I deserve, don't you think so?_

_They should open a new category for me. _


End file.
